


Time

by emsoccerstar



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 02:03:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emsoccerstar/pseuds/emsoccerstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot about a girl with little time left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time

The hands on the clock ticked and it was apparent that I was getting closer and closer to the eleventh hour. Leaves were changing from green, to yellow, to red. Some were already brown and the light wind forced them from the branches they were desperately clinging to. In some ways, that was me. They had been kind to me, giving me more than my share of extra time. But all that extra time had run out eventually and now my time was almost over. My body was desperately attempting to cling to the life it had always known. My heart was beating faster than normal, maybe to make up for all the times it wouldn’t get to beat. My breathing was labored, my lungs expanding and contracting to make up for the breaths I wouldn’t get to breathe.  
  
I stood up from the bench, my legs shaky from sitting for so long. I had decided to sit in the very center of the city, in front of the largest clock in a span of two hundred miles, to watch my last hours, then minutes, then seconds tick away from me. But I was too jumpy and so I turned in a circle, trying to decide where to go. Ideas flowed through my head, flickering in and out, but none stood out and none seemed like the last place I wanted to be. A sudden yanking in my chest made me face the direction of the horizon where the sun would soon be rising. Some force both inside of me and around me compelled one foot in front of the other, driving me away from the clock and onto a street I had travelled many times in my long life. Memories quickly flashed through my head as I took step after step on the cracked pavement. Running gleefully down the sidewalk, weaving in between people, being chased by Harry. Walking to and from school, hunched over from a heavy backpack. Driving to the library on Saturdays, drinking coffee. Walking to my job on Thursdays. Driving home from that miraculous first date. Looking over at Harry as he drove out of town after our wedding. Walking my daughter to school. And finally, walking this street during the procession, a sea of black spread around me. Completely alone in the midst of the crowd.  
  
And as I stepped closer and closer to my unknown destination, the intensity inside of me grew stronger and suddenly I was running. My body was heavier than I was used to and the running soon exhausted me. But I didn’t stop. My time was almost up, anyway. What did it matter if my body was ruined? I took blind turns, finding that in my state, I could see the softest glow of a pathway on the ground. I didn’t question the instinct, I just ran. And when it became too much for my body, I slowed to a fast walk. There was nobody on the streets. It was empty. I took one more turn and saw a beacon of light shining ahead and suddenly, my destination surfaced in my mind. I had known it all along, it had just been hidden beneath many thoughts of time. I slowed my walk, my legs growing unstable beneath me and my breaths shuddered in and out of me. The heavy wooden doors made my arms burn as I pushed them open, but the path in front of me was clearer and brighter than it had been before and it ignited some fire within me.  
  
I turned down each hallway, a map of them in my head from when I had visited him every day. The hallways were empty, as were the visiting rooms. The observation only flickered through my mind, not conjuring any questions or hesitation. As I walked the path from memory, my eyes traveled to the empty walls covered in a faded green paint. There had been pictures there before, but as time had gone on, the pictures had slowly disappeared. That did not surprise me. Almost nothing did anymore. My eyes scanned the small rectangles next to each window. A267… A289… A295… A316… I finally halted when A336 appeared in large white letters in the rectangle next to the window I had spent so much time in front of before.  
  
I leaned heavily against the wall next to the window. My energy was wearing thin and I was growing weaker by the minute. My body was failing and I was happy that this was the last thing I would see. I brought one hand slowly up to the glass. That one small action made my arms ache. The glass was cold to the touch and as my fingers brushed the glass, a spark of something gave me the energy to smile. Glancing through the window, I saw the slightest movement inside the small room. A pale, white figure came closer to the glass, finally kneeling on the other side and looking at me with a sad smile and knowing eyes. He knew what was happening and what would happen because he had been through it already. I breathed a shaky breath.  
  
“Does it hurt?” My cracked voice sounded strange in the complete silence around me and the man on the other side of the glass shook his head slowly, brown curls moving along with the action. His deep emerald green eyes bored into my own and we stared at each other for another minute before I spoke again. “And you’ll be with me the whole time?” My voice was breathy, wearing thin, but still fighting against the clock to get out my last words. The smallest of smiles shaped his perfect, pink lips and he nodded, his eyes brightening for a second before dulling again. He glanced down at my hand pressing against the glass and in one smooth movement, he brought his own hand up to the other side of the window. I could almost feel the warmth of his hand against mine but it had been so long since I had felt that, the memory was dull and lifeless in my mind. I smiled, barely, and blinked slowly. I watched him for a moment, taking in every detail I could. I hadn’t been to see him in a long time, fearing that the approach of the end would taint every second spent with my dead husband. But I was glad this was the last place I came to. I was glad I got to see him one last time before I met him again. My husband, who was already waiting for me on the other side.  
  
And then my time was up.


End file.
